Good Sex and God’s Best

The prayer that impelled my single, sexless journey with Christ went something like the following: Lord, I am enjoying the life I am currently living. I have everything that I thought I ever wanted to pursue for myself, relationally or professionally and on my way to getting the things I think I am supposed to have. But if there is more to be had in this life, please make me discontent with the way that I am currently living (and in the things I have currently planned). Show me there is more. Because if there is more to this life (than being in a relationship, casual sex, or pursuing a husband and marriage), then, I want it. I want more.
Sure enough, that is what God did. I became discontented with the way things were going in my single story. My relationships and search for marriage for the sake of achieving success or happiness would no longer satisfy. Every casual hookup and sexual encounter would leave me wanting more and completely unsatisfied. The discontentment and dissatisfaction with the life I had chased for myself for years had become a huge, inevitable longing I needed God to help answer and fill. Nothing I had turned to previously could satisfy or fill this void I now felt—not my career, material possessions, relationships, relational status, nor any sexual encounter or idea of a potential partner.
The following is the verse that captured my attention and heart during my season of burning discontentment, searching, and seeking out God’s plan for more for my life: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 ESV). God took my initial prayer and budding feelings of discontentment and longing, and catapulted me into seeking a personal, more intimate relationship with him.
First, I began to seek Him out regularly by filling my days and calendar with ways to meet with him. I attended church services, joined small groups, consistently prayed, and purposedly surrounded myself with a circle of friends who were also seeking God about their lives and futures. I did all this not out of obligation to anyone, but a desire to connect with God on a more personal level.
Second, I longed to know Christ not out of obligation or social pressure, but a desire that was now my own. I wanted to know God, not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to. I wanted to know if God was truly the big and powerful God that I had grown up hearing about, but I never truly experienced for myself. I wanted to experience the “more” I had asked Him about in a personal and tangible way. I should reveal to you here, the best way to experience more of God is to simply ask Him.
Third, as I began to see God’s faithfulness in seeking Him for the small daily things, my desire grew in wanting to see His hand and faithfulness in larger things. I wanted to see Him show up in the entangled relationships and situationships that came with being a single Christian woman too. I desired to see Him show up for me in all the plans and relationships I invited Him into. I began to seek Him out on the issues and frustrations that came with navigating sex and singleness, including my desire to engage in and maintain a life of celibacy. I was on a search to settle in my single heart that I could experience God’s joy, faithfulness, and satisfaction in a single, sex-free lifestyle. I also wanted to know if a life without sex was even manageable, attainable, or sustainable, whether marriage would happen for me or not.
I have spent more than a decade on this single, sexless journey, and I can wholeheartedly say it is manageable, attainable, and sustainable. God makes it possible, and He certainly makes it worth it. God’s joy, faithfulness, and satisfaction can be experienced here in your current season. He can make Himself known in the middle of your single sea.
If you find yourself seeking, knocking, searching, or questioning your current single status, I do not believe you are here by accident, friend. If you are seeking real joy and true contentment in this single season, you are not alone. If you are just starting your celibacy journey or have been here for a while, welcome. If you are wondering what God’s faithful hand looks like outside of being in a relationship, I am so glad that you are here. Allow me to offer this to you, too, girlfriend—God wants in on the personal feelings, conversations, questions, and intimate details of your single journey. The feelings and details you have in your head and have held in your heart for quite some time. He wants in on the conversations that are on your heart because you are on His heart. He even wants in on those questions and concerns related to your single journey and sexless life. He wants you to find the answers you are seeking or have been asking about in your evolving story.
Over the course of this book, we are going to have those conversations with God. We will move past the taboo of certain topics to a place of frank conversation, humor, and Godly truth. We will take some of the age-old questions and hot topics among girlfriends and seek out Christ’s heart for us in these matters. We will dismiss some of the shame- and fear-based narratives regarding singleness, sex, and relationships, and seek God for the answers that our hearts desire. We will seek, we will knock, and we will find.